Antillean Region: Puerto Rican District. 685 
Much of the mountain area is occupied by cultivated crops of coffee, to- 
bacco, fruit trees, shrubs etc., broken by fields of tall Para and Guinea grasses. 
There are many large cultivated shrubs and bushes which grow here, and 
hence it is that some of these mountainous portions of the island have, al- 
though under cultivation, the aspect of thick primeval forests. Such wooded 
lands are often coffee plantations '). 
The original forest has been preserved upon the slopes and summit of 
El Yunque, the highest peak of the island (3,300 or 3,790 feet)”. The 
forests of El Yunque in general consist of a jungle of trees, underbrush and 
lianas, and are exceedingly wet, the rainfall averaging one hundred and twenty 
inches per year. The forest resembles in its main features those of the other 
West India islands, according to EGGERS in a letter to Sir JOSEPH HOOKER, 
dated 1883 (Nature, London 1884). Here occur several interesting trees, 
especially a beautiful Talauma, a Hirtella, and Coccoloba macrophylla found 
up to an elevation of 2,000 feet ?). 
The United States government has established a forest reserve here which has been desig- 
nated technically the Luquillo Forest Reserve. Speeifically, according to the studies of 
GIFFORD4), the sole distinetion which can be made within the reserve is the division into low 
and high mountain forest. First in importance is the forest which grows in the fertile gorges, 
ravines and coves protected from strong winds and lying between the altitudes of 500 and 
2,000 feet. This forest consists of four dominant trees, viz.: tabanuco (Dacryodes hexandra), 
laurel sabino (Magnolia en ausubo (Sideroxylon mastichodendron) and guaraguao (Guarea 
trichilioides). Of these the ausubo is the rarest, while laurel sabino is not so scarce with guara- 
guao standing third. The most ee tree is the tabanuco which grows in patches and groups 
of almost pure stand and is common on the eastern side of the reserve, reproducing freely. 
Associated with these species, there is a host of others, such as: Bucida capitata (= Terminalia 
Hilariana), Andira inermis, Ternstroemia luquillensis. There are also many elimbing vines, 
such as Rourea frutescens, R. glabra and a species of grass, which cuts like a razor. Here and 
there in this belt are groups of mountain palms which have control of extensive areas. In 
looking down upon the interior basin from the top of El Yunque, it appears, like a sea of 
palms with islands of dark-leaved hardwoods here and there. Probably fifty ei cent. of this 
fertile basin is covered with these palms. 
bove the 2,000 foot contour line, there is another kind of forest growth. This is a stunted, 
gnarled, slow-growing ehr made up of many species. The limbs are moss covered and 
the roots in many case These are the rough mountain tops where the vegetation helps to 
restrain the floods and En is soil. — Trees to the number of ca. 85 species of trees according 
to GIFFORDS5) and BARTLETT occupy the Luquillo Reserve in Puerto Rico. 
— 
b) Virgin Islands Area. 
The islands included in this area, mentioned from east to west, are: 
St. Thomas, St. John, Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and, distinct from the 
1) Cook, O.F.: Shade in coffee Culture. Bulletin 25. > S. Division Botany 1901, 
2) Hırr, R. J.: Forest Conditions of Porto Rico. Bull. 25. U. S. Div. Forestry 1899. 
(Bibl. p. 89.) 
3) The forest Conditions of Puerto Rico. The Forester V! 234. 
4) GIFFORD, J. C.: The Luquillo forest Reserve, see Bibliogr. p. 89. 
5) GIFFORD: Loc. cit. Appendix pages 35—45- 
